The Best of Times, the Worst of Times

Chapter thirty

“TAYLOR!” I OPENED MY EYES AND SAW LUCY, LYING ON MY DOCK IN her bikini, waving at me. “Hello?”

“Sorry,” I said, sitting up and trying to remember what Lucy had been talking about. I had not been paying attention in the least. “What was that?”

“Let me guess,” Lucy said, shaking her head. “You didn’t hear what I was saying.”

I smiled involuntarily, causing Lucy to groan. “Oh, my God,” she said. “It’s so hard to have a conversation with you when you keep slipping into makeout flashbacks.”

I thought about denying it, but I had a feeling it would be pretty useless. I pulled my sunglasses down to cover my eyes and lay back down on my striped towel, stretching out in the late-afternoon sun.

It was almost July, a little over a week after Henry and I had kissed in the treehouse. And Lucy wasn’t entirely wrong to complain. In fact, she’d been right on the money—while she’d been talking, my mind had been drifting to the night before, when Henry and I, once we had been sure our respective families were asleep, had made out on this very dock, stretching out on a blanket under the stars. At one point, we’d paused to catch our breath, and I’d looked up at the sky as I rested my head on his chest, feeling his breath rise and fall. “Do you know any constellations?” I asked, and I’d felt his laugh rumbling in his chest before I heard it.

“No,” he’d said, and even without looking, I could hear the smile in his voice. “Want me to learn some?”

“No,” I said, my eyes still on the stars above us. “I was just wondering.” He’d smoothed his hand over my hair, and I’d closed my eyes for just a moment, still a little amazed that this had happened, that we’d somehow ended up here.

In the short time we’d been together, I knew that this was like none of my other relationships. And it was also not like we’d been before, when we were so young and inexperienced. It was like all the obstacles that had made my other relationships so complicated—gossip, drama at school—were just removed. He lived next door, my parents liked him, and we had no schedules or responsibilities beyond our not-very-taxing jobs. And unlike Warren’s fledgling relationship with Wendy, being with Henry wasn’t causing me a lot of stress.

Not that Warren wasn’t happy—in fact, he had developed an annoying humming habit, and he did it constantly, even in the shower—but he was still spending far too much time before every date picking out which shirt to wear, and then afterward, wanting to go over everything she’d said, as though looking for hidden clues or meanings. Warren and I would often end up returning home around the same time, and so we would sit outside, usually on the porch steps, and I listened as he dissected and analyzed his evening for me. But unlike Warren’s relationship, I was finding that being with Henry again was surprisingly relaxing. It was like I could just be myself when I was with him. After all, he already knew my flaws, especially the biggest one of all. And this meant that in quiet moments, lying with my head on his chest, I could close my eyes and just breathe, reveling in the peace.

But it wasn’t all quiet and peaceful. There was a spark between us that I’d never felt with any of the other (four) guys that I’d kissed. When we were making out, it was almost impossible for me to keep my hands off of him, and kissing him could stop time and cause me to forget where I was. Just thinking about kissing him made my stomach flip over, and I had burned several batches of fries at work as I stared into space, going over in my head the events of the night before—his fingers, tracing a line down my neck, the spot he’d found just underneath my earlobe that I hadn’t ever considered before, but that now could make my knees weak. The way I would run my hands through his hair, always pushing back that one errant lock as we kissed, the softness of his cheek against mine, the warmth of the back of his neck where he was always faintly sunburned.

But now, I attempted to pull myself away from all such thoughts and focus on Lucy. “Sorry,” I said sheepishly. “Really. What’s up?”

She frowned at me for a moment before pulling out her phone. “Okay,” she said. “For the second time.” She raised an eyebrow at me and I tried to look properly contrite. “It’s Brett. He keeps texting me, saying he wants to keep in touch, maybe do the long-distance thing, which is crazy, because we went on, like, three dates.”

“Well,” I said slowly. “Maybe you should just keep your options open for now. It’s not like Brett’s even here. And maybe there’s someone around here you haven’t even thought of.”

“If there was someone around here, I’d have noticed,” Lucy grumbled. I opened my mouth to say something—maybe plead Elliot’s case once again—when she glanced back to the house and smiled, shaking her head. “Look who’s here.”

I turned and saw Henry walking down from his house, wearing his Borrowed Thyme T-shirt, raising a hand in a wave. I felt myself smile, wide, just at seeing him.

“Oh, my God,” Lucy said, rolling her eyes at my expression. “I’m going to take that as my cue to go.”

“No, stay,” I said, but even I could hear how halfhearted this sounded, and she laughed.

“Nice try,” she said. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“See you tomorrow?” I asked.

“Definitely,” she said. She stood and pulled a pair of shorts and a tank top over her bikini, stuffing her towel and the magazines we’d been paging through into her canvas bag just as Henry arrived on the dock. “Hey,” she said, walking past him and giving him a good-natured shove. I had been worried, probably more than I would have admitted, about seeing them together after learning that they’d dated. But watching them interact for a few minutes had been enough to make me see that there was nothing between them. More than anything else, they seemed to behave like brother and sister now.

“Oh, are you leaving?” Henry asked her, and even though he was clearly trying to sound disappointed, I could tell what Lucy meant—Henry was also a terrible liar. Lucy just shook her head and waved good-bye.

“Hey,” I called to him, shading my eyes with my hand against the sun.

“Hi, yourself,” he said, reaching me and sitting down on the dock next to me. I saw his eyes widen at the sight of my bikini, and I laughed as I leaned over and kissed him. He tasted sweet, like buttercream frosting, and I had a feeling he’d been on icing duty that day at work.